THe Regional City

The Regional City (1966) by Derek Senior – Longmans
ISBN: None (because 1966 didn’t bother with such fripperies) | Condition: Fine | In Protective Plastic Sleeve | From Crappy Old Books

Welcome to the future—well, the future as imagined in 1966. Derek Senior’s The Regional City is a serious, scholarly, and occasionally utopian look at how cities might sprawl, cluster, and reconfigure themselves to meet the demands of modern life. Back then, “modern” meant roundabouts, tower blocks, and shiny new shopping precincts with plenty of concrete. Forget jetpacks and hovercars—this is the real urban dream: zoning, planning, and diagrams with arrows pointing purposefully into the distance.

This particular copy is in fine condition, which at Crappy Old Books is rarer than finding an uncreased Penguin paperback in a student flat. The book is so well preserved it might as well have been vacuum-sealed at birth. It comes wrapped in a protective plastic sleeve, looking every bit the prized artefact of mid-20th-century planning theory. Honestly, if you hold it at the right angle, you might just hear a town planner softly humming about “mixed-use development” from 60 years ago.

Inside, you’ll find maps, ideas, and prose brimming with the conviction that if you just shuffle people, houses, roads, and offices into the right geometric patterns, society will flourish. Senior had a knack for balancing technical detail with accessible argument, and this book still buzzes with the optimism of a time when planners thought they could fix everything with a few new bypasses and a civic centre.

Condition-wise, it’s near new. The pages are crisp, the binding is tight, and the plastic sleeve gives it an almost museum-like aura. This isn’t just a book—it’s an exhibit piece. The only thing missing is a plaque beneath it saying, “In case of misguided optimism, break glass.”

Perfect for urban studies enthusiasts, retro-futurists, and anyone who has ever looked at a 1960s housing estate and thought, “Well, someone had a vision.” Or, if you simply enjoy owning books that sound like they should be quoted in a documentary narrated by a serious voice over footage of Brutalist architecture, this is the one.

Crappy Old Books: where yesterday’s city plans are today’s coffee-table curios.

Condition near new, very well preserved.

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